This time of the year, honestly speaking, every year I tend to become more reflective on my Jesuit life. This pious practice I began in the novitiate. Just before the feast of St Ignatius we would have nine days of special prayer or novena. Our novice director would ask us to reflect on the life of St Iganatius and ask for the blessing for our life. During my two years of novitiate I did it according to the instruction of my novice director.
Years have gone by! I do not have the same opportunity of any structural prayer or novena. But every year on July 22, I strongly feel that I need to spend quiet time. This year also the same! This time is more special. Presently I happen to be in the land of St Ignatius. I will have the opportunity to celebrate his feast in a place, very close to his birthplace. Last weekend I visited his birthplace Loyola. To my great surprise, I realized that for the last three years I have been regularly visiting Loyola and other Ignatian sites. What surprised me that after each visit, I would never thought that I would come back again. But I have been fortunate enough to come back again and again. Every time I come back with different people both- laity and Jesuits. Each visit leaves some impact on me.
Just a few days ago, I have completed 12 years as Jesuit. In 2000, I left a remote village of Bangladesh and now I am living in Rome, the very house where St Ignatius spent 12 years of his life. A long way…a long story! I remember sitting in the room of St Ignatius (in Rome), late in the evening I asked myself how was my last 12 years!
I joined the Jesuit with a view of making myself a holy and pious priest. But soon I discovered the impressions I had about the religious life are far more distant from the reality. I did begin to question. I did have many doubts. But I was fortunate to have some very good formators who have helped me to understand the meaning of religious life. They helped me to see things in different perspective.
Then I have encountered my own shortcomings. I have fallen again and again. I realized that I am a human being. It is normal for me to fall but I have to rise. The Lord, whom I was placing only in the Church, falls with me. He also helps me rise. Many of my external practices vanished day by day. The form of my prayer has changed. The rituals, formalities, and external devotion, which I had for Divine God, have been replaced by my personal relationship with a God who lives among us. I have begun a process of making myself naked. And these years St Ignatius has been the source of inspiration for me!
